Thursday, March 19, 2009

boys and science

The boys have been on a huge science kick. They discovered a soda pop bottle kit I bought years ago and never got around to doing with them. So now that they are older I turned them loose and boy did they go at it!

Here they are doing baking soda, vinegar and raisins. They thought this was pretty cool, and then I told them a story. A story about using Mt. Dew and raisins to make little kids think you're eating swamp slugs and they thought that was pretty funny.

Then they did the cornstarch and water formula where it's a solid but it's not...... They started in the soda pop bottle and then decided to take it up a notch and made a bigger batch in a plastic container the size of a shoebox.......in my kitchen........five boys..........lots of cornstarch and water.......and a container that fits one foot........oh yes they did.......and added food coloring........and the dogs got curious...........no animals (or kids) were harmed in the making of this experiment...........









And then the fun got to start all over again, when Amanda came home from school!! You know how glitter tracks all over your house when you've done a project with it? Cornstarch can do the same!! Isn't that nice to know? I will give credit to the boys, they did clean it up, and cleaned it up again, and cleaned it up again.

And they got to do another experiment and see how long you can keep that particular formula on the counter before it starts to mold! About 1 week.....


Here is Lee, Collin, and Than with their "lava lamps".....I guess that's what the experiment was titled, as they kept calling them that. They had lots of fun with this one and these are still hanging around. It involved water, oil and food coloring and thankfully only three boys......

Jayden was so inspired by the older kid's experiments that he bought his own kit with his birthday money! And he's been excited about it and doing experiments every day since!

His kit contained "baby" soda pop bottles, which are test tube shaped. They are used to make 2 liter soda pop bottles, using hot air to blow them up to size. Each tube has different experiments in it. He's grown a dinosaur, still growing it actually, made color crystals, snow and color changing beads. And sand that stays dry. That's been my favorite so far. I think he has one or two more to go.

And Lee, being the ever helpful big brother offered to help him! Of course Lee's helping so that he can get a piece of the action. Well not just for that, cause he is an awful sweet big brother when he wants to be.....

And Jayden has declared that he's going to be a scientist. He's really enjoyed this set, so I do fore see more sets in the future, at least for the time being.

2 comments:

Karies place said...

I need to get more involved with the science stuff. We've just recently started watching some videos on science experiments, but haven't taken time to do any ourselves. Maybe with warmer weather...

Sharbear said...

This is the day Nathan Cody Harris came into the world and I have been pretty much out of touch with everything else and Rita had surgery so I've missed the posts. Good job Carrie!!!!!I love, love, love to read them and see the pics. Thanks. Love you all.